Telehealth

Telehealth involves the use of telecommunications and virtual technologies such as phones, tablets, video cameras and the Internet to deliver healthcare outside of traditional healthcare facilities. Hence, it allow the “patient” such as the chronically ill or the elderly to communicate with a nurse or doctor at a distance. The healthcare professional can obtain information from the patient relevant for their disease to allow them to prescribe treatment and care by monitoring the patient closely without a physical meeting.

Telehealth is dedicated to meet the increasing demands for healthcare services especially due to the increasing ageing population and the increasing number of patients with a chronic disease. The use of telehealth especially becomes relevant in case of rural settings, lack of transport, lack of mobility, decreased funding or lack of staffing restrict access to care.

Telehealth has been highlighted as a possible solution that could be implemented to support patient pathways across sectors in order to provide disease-specific education, assisted planning, emotional support, pragmatic advice, monitoring etc. Thus, telehealth may increase the health and well-being of patients and allow more efficient use of specialized healthcare resources.